


Somewhere Normal

by lilyinblue



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Mockingbird (Comic), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, F/M, Family Drama, Gen, Healing, Injury Recovery, Parent-Child Relationship, Post-Season/Series 02 Finale, Secrets, Serious Injuries, Siblings, Soul-Searching
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-06
Updated: 2016-03-22
Packaged: 2018-04-25 03:45:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4945522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilyinblue/pseuds/lilyinblue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I can't do this anymore."</p><p>In the wake of her near death at the hands of Grant Ward, Bobbi finds herself alone and away from her team and friends. On the long road to recovery, she contemplates the weight of secrets and just what she meant when she said those five words.</p><p>Update -<br/>Chapter 2: A little pep talk from an old friend<br/>Chapter 3: Coming out of the cold</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Rome, Georgia, USA  
3:00 PM, Late June**

A rhythmic creaking and squeaking interrupted the afternoon quiet as Bobbi Morse gently swayed back and forth on an old porch swing. Having discarded her beat-up canvas sneakers half an hour ago, she used her bare toes against the porch's floorboards to lazily propel the swing back and forth. She wore her best "good, local southern girl" costume: frayed denim shorts and a loose, blue t-shirt. The normalcy of the scene was only betrayed by the heavy, black knee-immobilizing brace trapping her right leg.

The brace was growing hot and uncomfortable in the heat of a Georgia summer afternoon and the humidity led sweat to start lightly beading on her forehead. Bobbi found that she didn't mind, however. There was something comforting and familiar about the heat, and it was a welcome change from the cold sterility of hospitals and underground secret bases. Still, she mentally debated going indoors to mix up the pitcher of sweet tea that her current setting seemed to demand. But, figuring she was too clumsy for breaking and entering in her current condition, she decided to wait. She had survived far worse conditions than a humid summer afternoon with far less before.

Somewhere in the distance, the keening buzz of a cicada hummed through the air.

Bobbi knew she probably had about an hour to wait, still. She doubted that anything had changed, and the old summer routines and habits would still hold true. Despite that, years of training and experience told her to show up early, just in case people break their routines. Also, you should always bring a book. However, the book sat on the floorboards, beside her shoes and a pair of crutches. Bobbi ignored it and instead put her sunglasses back on, leaned back on the swing, closed her eyes, and let the sun warm her face.

  
***

**The Playground  
5:00 AM, Four Weeks Earlier**

_"Bobbi," a voice whispered._

_Though she heard the voice through the fog of sleep and painkillers, Bobbi kept drifting on the edge of unconsciousness and failed to respond._

_"Bobbi..." the voice repeated itself._

_Bobbi felt a hand gently squeeze her left wrist, the one not tangled in IV tubing and the wires of a pulse monitor. Only then did she finally open her eyes. Most of the lights were off. She blinked several times before her vision finally came into focus and the blurry face looking down at her finally resolved into Phil Coulson's. She drew in a shallow breath, unable to draw the deeper one she wanted to, and licked her desert-dry lips once before finally speaking._

_"Coulson?" she asked groggily._

_Bobbi looked to the side and saw that Hunter was still there, standing behind Coulson. Hunter's jaw was tightly set and he was fidgeting - as if he was desperate to be doing anything but standing still. It took far longer than it should have for it to register, but even in a drug-induced haze Bobbi could read her ex-husband like a book. He was agitated. Coulson, seemingly the world's most unflappable man, had his tells too. Bobbi looked back at him and realized she could see it in his eyes. Something was wrong._

_"What's wrong?" she asked. The lethargy had faded from her voice already, but it was still hoarse._

_"We have a problem," Coulson stated. Bobbi's eyes wandered as Coulson began speaking. She realized his arm was in a sling. It took her longer than it should have to remember why. She hated morphine._

_Bobbi's eyes moved back up to Coulson's face as he continued talking. "Something happened to Simmons last night." Bobbi opened her mouth to ask for details, but Coulson offered them unbidden. "That monolith that was in the Iliad's hold. It... swallowed her." Coulson shook his head as he said it, as if he didn't understand it himself._

_"What? How?" Bobbi's blue eyes darted back and forth between Coulson and Hunter._

_"We only have the security camera footage. We don't understand it yet either, but --"_

_Hunter interrupted, abruptly breaking his silence. "Bob, you can't do anything about it right now."_

_Coulson agreed. "He's right, Bobbi. You don't know how much I wish I had your help, but for now your job is to rest and heal. Which brings me to why I'm here, and I'm sorry to have woken you up but we need to do this now."_

_Bobbi's attention briefly wandered. The drainage tube piercing her chest wall between her ribs was starting to ache again. Her focus snapped back to Coulson when she noticed Hunter had begun to pace._

_Coulson continued. "Bobbi, I've talked to the medical staff we have left here. As short-handed as we are, with the lab destroyed and now with Jemma missing, they're not confident that we have the resources to give you the level of care that you still need."_

_"You need a real orthopedic surgeon for your knee," Hunter offered, still pacing. "And a... and a pulmonary or thoracic... whatever."_

_With most of the waking fog having cleared from her brain, Bobbi was able to fast-forward to the end of the conversation on her own. "Where are you sending me?"_

_"I contacted Maria Hill and she called in a few favors. We got you a bed at Walter Reed in Bethesda."_

_Bobbi knew it made sense. There was no point in wasting what little energy she had on protesting. So many of SHIELD's own facilities had shuttered and SHIELD medical was no different. She wouldn't be the first SHIELD agent ever to end up in a military hospital anyway._

_"They'll give you the best care there, Bob. They'll get you back on your feet," Hunter chimed in again, telling Bobbi what she already knew. He wasn't trying to convince her, she realized. He was trying to convince himself._

_"You need to stay here," she stated, looking at Hunter, finally understanding the source of his agitation._

_"I'm afraid so," Coulson answered instead. "We can't spare anyone else, not right now."_

_"But if you really need me--" Hunter started, looking imploringly at Bobbi._

_"No," she cut him off. "The team needs you." Under better circumstances, she probably could have laughed at the irony of her and Hunter going their separate ways again, not because of her promise to SHIELD, but because of his. She briefly realized she was probably supposed to have said something different._

_"I'll come as soon as I can," Hunter insisted._

_"I know you will." Bobbi gave Hunter a weak smile that likely wasn't as encouraging as it was supposed to have been. Hunter approached the bed and leaned over to leave a lingering kiss on Bobbi's forehead, then another on her lips._

_"I have to go pack your things," he mumbled, brushing a hand over Bobbi's blonde hair before stepping away._

_Coulson looked at them both apologetically. "I'm afraid we need to put you on a quinjet within the hour."_

_She was leaving the base to be put in cold storage in a hospital, she was leaving Hunter, and something terrible had happened to Jemma. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Bobbi knew she should be more distraught than she was. Morphine did have a way of numbing more than just the physical pain. Without lifting her head from her pillow, Bobbi nodded slightly to Coulson before giving the only answer she could: "Ok."_

_Somewhere on the quinjet flight towards DC, Bobbi remembered. The day SHIELD fell, she was supposed to die to make sure that alien monolith stayed buried. Instead, she decided to live. Now Jemma was gone. Those thoughts would haunt Bobbi for awhile._

_It was a lonely flight._

  
***

An hour later, Bobbi's eyes snapped open as she heard the sound of gravel crunching beneath the tires of a car. She sat up on the swing to see a silver sedan working its way up the long driveway. Upon seeing the car, something seized in her chest and it was as if her nerves caught on fire. She closed her eyes again for a moment and tried to draw in as deep of a breath as her weakened lungs could. Failing to find some calm, she leaned over, grabbed her crutches, and hauled herself to her feet. Nerves or not, she had a self-imposed mission to complete.

The car pulled to a stop halfway up the gravel driveway as Bobbi awkwardly hobbled down the porch steps. As soon as the engine noise halted, the driver's side door swung open and a thin older woman with greyed blonde hair scrambled out. She hurried up the path leading to the porch and gasped, "Barbara?! Is that really you?" The older woman stopped short in front of Bobbi, as if the crutches supporting her were some kind of barrier.

Bobbi pushed her sunglasses up, leaving the yellow-tinted aviators perched atop her head. She smiled warmly at the other woman, but her blue eyes betrayed something else: something both a little sheepish and a little sad.

"Hey momma," Bobbi Morse finally spoke. "I'm home."

  
***

Bobbi shifted one of her crutches, placing both of them under her right arm and freeing up her left. Susan, her mother, immediately took advantage of the opening and enfolded Bobbi into a tight bear hug. Bobbi felt a dull pain blossom in her chest as the hug put pressure on her ribcage. Despite that, she stood still and refused to display the pain, not even with the faintest wince. Instead, she returned the embrace, letting her mother cling to her for as long as she needed to. When she heard a sniffle, Bobbi pulled back. "Oh mom, don't cry. I'm fine. I promise." Somewhere in the back of her head, she chastised herself. _You're already telling lies_.

Her eyes glistening, Susan pulled away a little and Bobbi settled herself back onto both crutches. Still, Susan kept both hands clasped on her daughter's shoulders. "I'm sorry, honey. It's just been so long and you were the last face I thought I'd see to today. And bless your heart, look at you. Honey, what happened?"

Bobbi's smile faded and she glanced down, taking a moment to collect her thoughts. She had the whole story rehearsed in her head, but the glib response that was supposed to be there had somehow disappeared. "It was just a car wreck. Research van versus delivery truck," she lied instead. A faint twang appeared in her voice as she continued, as if she had flipped a mental switch to a restore an accent that had been long-since erased. "I'm all right, but they wanted to send me back stateside for the knee surgery. That's all." As soon as that lie left her lips, Bobbi felt an unfamiliar heaviness in her heart. She said she couldn't do this anymore, but apparently she could.

An awkward silence settled between the newly-reunited mother and daughter for a moment. One was too overcome with emotion to find words, the other uncharacteristically afraid to speak. Only the distant buzz of the summer cicadas filled the air instead.

Finally, Susan broke the stalemate. "Come on, let's get you inside. I'm sure you're not supposed to be on your feet like this." In her mind, Bobbi tried to forget that it was true. She wasn't supposed to be.

Susan hurried up the porch steps and Bobbi followed her, shrugging off her mother's attempts to help. "Going up stairs is easier than down," she explained. Susan picked up Bobbi's discarded shoes and duffle bag and dutifully carried them inside.

Bobbi passed through the front door and felt a burst of welcome coolness from the air conditioning hit her in the face. When her eyes adjusted to the change of light, she realized she had limped her way into another lifetime entirely...

... and it seemed devastatingly normal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The show wasn't entirely clear how much time passed between all of the events seen at the end of the Season 2 finale. For the purposes of this story, I'm assuming it wasn't much, and that Jemma was swallowed by the monolith within a day or two of Bobbi's rescue from Ward and the events on the Iliad.
> 
> Bobbi's hometown and the names of her family members are based on what we saw in Jim McCann's "Hawkeye & Mockingbird" series from 2010, however nobody faked their death in this version of the world.
> 
> Coming Up: A tense family reunion and a visit from an old friend.


	2. Chapter 2

**Susan Morse's Living Room**  
**Rome, Georgia, USA**  
**4:45 PM**

The moment Bobbi landed on the couch, her entire body flooded with relief.  Her ribs burned, her chest felt tight, her shoulders were sore from the crutches and a headache seemed to be creeping in as well.  Apparently her mother had been right; Bobbi did need to lay down.

The journey from Maryland to Georgia left Bobbi exhausted and aching, but she didn't truly realize to what extent until she finally let herself succumb to the feeling and rest.  Her thoracic surgeon forbade her from flying so soon after three lung surgeries with the warning the pressure changes would be more than her still-healing lungs could handle.  Given that calling in a Quinjet for a low-altitude trip home to mom's house would be wildly inappropriate, even in her current state, Bobbi resorted to overland travel by train through DC and Atlanta instead.  Her doctors warned her that it was too soon, but the impulse to leave and to simply _act_ was too strong.  Now laying on this couch, Bobbi wondered if just maybe she should have listened. 

There was something about spies and trains.  It did not matter who you were or who you worked for, nobody in espionage boarded a train for a long-distance ride without expecting a fight.  Bobbi was no stranger to this, having run operations on trains before herself.  While the Crescent to Atlanta was far less romantic than the Eurostar or Shinkansen, the same cloud of unease and mission-ready adrenaline left Bobbi unable to sleep on the overnight ride, despite her private sleeping cabin and the Glock her ex-husband had slipped into her bag.  

Unfortunately, sleep was something she was supposed to be getting plenty of.  More unfortunately still, sleep wasn't coming here either.  Life in SHIELD left Bobbi unable to sleep soundly in unfamiliar surroundings.  The fact that her childhood home now counted as "unfamiliar" was something she didn't care to contemplate right now, though.

From her horizontal vantagepoint on the couch, Bobbi gazed around the room instead.  Full of family photos and slightly outdated decor, her mother's living room felt like a shrine to a past life.  Old sports trophies filled almost an entire bookcase.  The volleyball and track trophies were hers.  The baseball and soccer trophies belonged to Ben, her older brother.  Of course, they both had their share of basketball awards on that shelf too.  With the height both she and her brother had, joining the basketball team was pretty much mandatory when she was in school.  There were a few taekwondo tournament trophies, too.  Both she and her brother took the classes, but the awards were all hers.

There were awards for the feats of the body, and awards for the feats of the mind.  A diploma from Georgia Tech, awarding Barbara Morse a PhD in biochemistry held the center place of honor above the mantle.  An older certificate hung beside it, declaring Bobbi valedictorian of her class at Rome High. Yet, Bobbi's eyes were drawn to something else on the mantle: a photo in a small silver frame.

The picture was of Bobbi and her brother.  She couldn't have been more than four years old, leaving Ben to be six.  They were on Mission Beach in San Diego, before their father left and before their mother moved them from California back to her own home state of Georgia.  They looked so happy in that photo... innocent and carefree.  Ben had his arm around Bobbi, protecting his little sister as always.  She was sure Ben knew he couldn't protect her anymore, but he had no idea how scary the monsters were now, or how strong that little sister of his had become.  Still, despite how strained their relationship had become, she also knew that the impulse was still there, just buried.

Bobbi's gaze stopped wandering around the living room that was so familiar and stayed focused on that photo.  She stared at the little blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl and couldn't help but to feel a disconnect.  How did that sweet little girl, the little girl who would grow up to be a gifted athlete and a promising young scientist, become a woman who was more comfortable with an M16 than her own family?  She wondered exactly when it was that she became somebody else.

***

Exhaustion finally got the better of her and Bobbi dozed off briefly, but quickly woke again when she heard her mother's voice in the kitchen through the wall.

_"Are you busy tonight?  I know it's short notice, but I was hoping you could come over for a little while... maybe for dinner?"_

Bobbi quickly realized her mother was on the phone.  She assumed Ben was the other half of the conversation.  

_"No, everything's fine.  It's just that your sister's here."_

Theory confirmed.

_"I didn't know she was coming home either.  It was a surprise to me too."_

Flustered was likely the best word to describe how Bobbi knew she left her mother feeling.  Her mother fretted about the lack of groceries in the kitchen, about Bobbi's room not being ready, about still having summer school classes to teach tomorrow...  Bobbi did all she could to assure her mother that none of it mattered.  She would eat anything, she couldn't make it up the stairs to her room and would rather sleep in the den anyway, and maybe it would be nice to visit the school.

Of course, she wouldn't deny that showing up unannounced as she did was inconsiderate, but making no promises left her with a way out.  Dr. Garner had said something about a years-long pattern of impulsive behavior when it came to handling her personal life.  Maybe he was right.  She hadn't been feeling very brave in recent days.

_"No, I understand honey... maybe it's for the best that she can't come."_

Bobbi assumed the "she" in question was the sister-in-law she barely knew.  

Three years ago and change, Ben called Bobbi and left a message.  He wanted to tell his little sister that he was getting married.  In the message he said that his bride-to-be had three brothers of her own, and she was so excited to finally have a sister in Bobbi.  Regrettably, the message was two weeks old by the time she heard it and she cried when she did.  She couldn't help it.  She heard the joy in her brother's voice and how much he wanted to share it with her, but she knew she'd leave him disappointed.

It took three more days before she could call Ben back.  She remembered hearing the hurt in his voice because it took her so long.  She smoothed it over with lies and they talked for two hours.  It seemed like old times, like the days in their youth when they had been so close.  Inside, though, Bobbi could feel the book closing on the relationship between herself and her brother as he told her of his hopes for their family and the future.  She just didn't have the heart to tell him the truth.

That night she went out and got thoroughly drunk with Isabelle Hartley.  Izzy knew Bobbi was upset, but Bobbi just blamed Hunter instead of pouring her heart out like she wanted to.  She never felt quite as bad lying to Izzy.  Lies don't count when the other person knows you're lying.  Those lies are only unspoken truths.

... and Bobbi never met the sister-in-law who was so desperate to be close to her until the day before the wedding.  She missed all of the wedding preparations and even the rehearsal dinner.  That night, Ben's patience with Bobbi's absence finally ran out.  She wished she could have told him of the epic hoops she had to jump through to get from Beirut to Atlanta on time.  There were some great stories in that journey, but she never told them.  Instead, she lied.  Her relationship with Ben never quite recovered.

_"I don't mean it like that.  It's just that... your sister was in a car accident and needed knee surgery.  She's on crutches and all, but..."_

Bobbi figured Ben interrupted with something, no doubt with some irritation over the suddenness of her arrival.

_"... No.  I think there's something else bothering her.  Something's wrong.  She just doesn't look very well and she seems... I don't know.  Off."_

One of her mother's first observations upon their reunion was that Bobbi looked pale.  The second was that Bobbi looked as if she had lost weight.  "Pale" became her new normal, ever since she joined Coulson's team at the Playground.  One didn't get much sunshine living on a mostly-underground base.  Instead, she blamed it on too much time working in the lab and a hospital stay.  She figured that was only about ninety percent false, but it was enough to qualify as the eighth lie she told her mother since she came home.  

As for the weight loss, Bobbi hadn't stepped on a scale, but she wouldn't be surprised if she had dropped a few pounds.  When a chest x-ray showed the start of an abscess in what was left of her lung, a heavy regular dosage of broad-spectrum antibiotics followed.  The resulting nausea made the entire concept of "eating" pretty unappealing.  And, she didn't care to think about how much muscle mass so much time in bed had cost her.  Of course when her mother told her that she looked thin, Bobbi simply denied it.  That was lie number nine.

_"No, you know how your sister is.  She says she's fine.  But, she was asking for you.  I don't think she's going to talk about whatever's bothering her until you're here."_

Bobbi felt a stab of guilt after hearing that.  She also felt stupid.  She was supposed to be perfectly inscrutable.  Always.  It was in her SHIELD file under "tactical proficiencies".  She had even lied to Nick Fury himself while looking him right in the eye and gotten away with it.  Susan Morse was not Nick Fury.  She was not a spy; she was a middle-school science teacher.  Yet, she could read Bobbi like a book.  Bobbi wasn't sure if it was because her own guard was down, or if it was just one of those magical abilities mothers had when it came to their daughters.

She felt bad enough that she was making her mother worry and wonder what bad news what might be waiting.  The guilt truly piled on when she wondered how many other lies her mother may have seen through.

_"Will you come?  It doesn't have to be very long."_

Bobbi found herself holding her breath in anticipation.  She wanted to finally open up, to come out of the cold, and tell the truth, but she didn't have the energy to do it twice.  She needed her brother to be there first.

_"All right.  Thank you, honey.  I'll see you soon."_

... and she exhaled in relief.

***

 **Walter Reed National Military Medical Center**  
**Bethesda, Maryland, USA**  
**11:30 AM, Three Weeks and Two Days Earlier**

The curtains had been drawn closed around Bobbi's bed, creating an extra bubble of isolation within the confines of her private hospital room.  She rested on her side in bed, still as a statue, while a dark-haired nurse worked at her back.  Gentle, practiced hands carefully redressed and checked Bobbi's wounds and the thoracotomy incision between her ribs.

Through the fabric of the curtains, Bobbi noticed a faint, shadowy shape near the door that hadn't been there earlier.  The material was too thick for her to make out any details, but she watched the shadow intently.

"You okay, hon?" the nurse quietly asked.  "I'm not hurting you, am I?"

"Hmm?" Bobbi hummed absently, still focused on the phantom by the door.

"You're not moving a muscle, but your heart rate's going up."  Bobbi briefly felt the nurse's hand touch her back.  The calming gesture did nothing to stop the numbers from slowly climbing on the heart monitor's readout.

"I'm fine," Bobbi murmured.  She glanced over her shoulder at the nurse for a moment.  When she looked back, the shadow by the door was gone.  A general cloud of unease settled on her mind and she released a breath she didn't realize she had been holding.  She realized days ago that while you can keep looking over your shoulder from a hospital bed, you'll never see much.

"I'll bet you're glad to get that tube out," the nurse continued making smalltalk.  Bobbi's chest tube had been removed that morning, leaving behind another handful of stitches.

"Yeah," Bobbi paused. "Was someone else here?"

"Not that I know of," the nurse sounded unconcerned.  "I don't think your physical therapist is coming by until three."

Bobbi continued staring into the curtain while the nurse snapped her hospital gown closed again.  With the nurse's continued help, Bobbi rolled back onto her back and settled as comfortably as she could.  As one last gesture of fussing, the nurse readjusted the large pillow keeping Bobbi's braced right leg elevated.  "I know your PT is going to want to get you out of bed for awhile this afternoon, so I'll be back then to help, but you buzz if you need anything before then, k hon?"  Bobbi offered a weak smile in response.

On her way out of the room, the nurse pulled the curtains back, revealing a man leaning casually against the room's door frame.  Bobbi's blue eyes lit up and genuine warmth appeared in her smile.

"You look like hell, Birdie."

She did.

Clint Barton, clad in jeans and a dark purple t-shirt, finally entered the room and casually sat down on the bedside stool the nurse had just abandoned.  He reached out, grabbed Bobbi's good hand - the one without tape-wrapped fingers - and gave it a good, long squeeze.  She felt a lump growing in her throat as she squeezed his hand back.

"What the hell are you doing here, Clint?" she asked hoarsely, trying to beat back the wave of emotion that threatened to overcome her.

"Hill called Nat... told her to call me.  Seemed to think you could use to see a friendly face."

"You'd be the first," Bobbi admitted.  

She glanced down for a moment, feeling the weight of Clint's gaze upon her, and knowing he was making a mental inventory of everything about her that looked broken.  Her right leg was in a heavy brace and propped up on a pillow.  Tape coated several of her fingers, rendering them stiff and clumsy.  Though they had begun to heal, several small cuts marred her face and her bruises had aged into blotches of purple, green and yellow.   Even her hair was out of sorts, having been pulled over her shoulder into a messy braid.  He had been right.  She looked like hell and didn't feel much better.

Bobbi answered Clint's question before he had a chance to ask it.  She knew it was coming.  "Complete tear of the MCL with a fractured and dislocated kneecap.  They did the first surgery two days after transferring me here.  I have another scheduled in a few days."

Clint winced.  The cringe turned into a frown when Bobbi failed to add anything else.  "You don't get put on oxygen just for knee surgery," he pointed out, knowing she wasn't telling the whole story.  The plastic tubing of the nasal cannula supplementing her breathing was hard to miss.

"... and a bullet did enough damage to my left lung to require an emergency lobectomy."  She forced a flash of a smile and added, "I'm down half a lung and this thoracotomy incision's a bitch.  I'm having all the fun."  Despite the droll nature of her comment, Bobbi's voice wavered.

Clint sighed.  "Shit, Birdie... Nat said it was pretty bad but she didn't know the details..."

"But I'm still here," Bobbi offered, trying to put her brave face back on.  "I didn't think I would be."

"They said it was Grant Ward, and he's still out there."

"Yeah..."

"What happened?" Clint finally asked.

And she told him.

She told him the truth.

It wasn't the clinical, "just the facts" version she gave Melinda May during her official bedside debrief.  It wasn't the version she crafted for Dr. Garner during her first post-incident psych eval, spun to convince the doctor that she would be fine.  It wasn't the sanitized version she gave Hunter, because she could see how her pain stoked his rage and she wanted to spare him what she could.  

She didn't feel she needed to edit for Clint's sake, though.  Instead, Bobbi's gave Clint the most honest version of her story that she had ever told.

Years ago, it had been Barton and Morse, Hawkeye and the Mockingbird.  Clint and Bobbi had shared enough adventures and fought enough of the same fights that she knew he wouldn't judge, and more importantly, he would understand.  He would understand what it meant to put the job, SHIELD, and the good of the many over what you want, what you love and the good of the one... and just how much you stood to lose in the name of doing what is right.  It was the same principle that led them to walk away from each other oh so many years ago, and the same principle that let Clint be such a valuable friend.

Bobbi began with her time spent undercover at Hydra and the situation that unfolded that led her to choose to burn a safe house.  She moved on to lies and masks, the saga of Grand Ward and Agent 33.  She then told him of torture, needles and a boot to the knee. Finally, she told him of a trap with a high-powered rifle and one of the easiest "hard" calls she ever made.  All the while, Clint leaned against the side-rail on Bobbi's hospital bed and simply listened.

"... and the last thing I remember was seeing was blood all over Hunter's face, and realizing it was mine," Bobbi came to the end of her story with a new hoarseness and sounding very distant.  "And I thought that was the last thing I was ever going to see, because I refused to let that psychopath win.  I wasn't going to let him hurt someone I cared about just to punish me over a call that _I_ made.  I've had other close calls, but this was different.  I honestly thought it was the end, I was done, I was _dead_ , but I was okay with it.  I was... ready, because _I did the right thing_..."  She rubbed at the corner of one eye with her finger, as if to reassure herself that her tears remained unshed.  

She sniffed once,  "I was so confused when I woke up in a bed on base.  Like, I wasn't supposed to be there..."

"... and now you're here," Clint finished for her.

"And now I'm here," Bobbi echoed.  "Do you think it was selfish?"

Clint gave Bobbi a searching look, "What do you mean?"

"I jumped in front of that gun to save Hunter, but I know this is killing him.  He opened that door and set off that trap.  Maybe he's being punished more than I am now."  Bobbi's voice grew quieter and less steady as she continued, "If I had died, like I thought was going to, he would have lost it... probably would have run off, done something stupid and gotten himself killed."  She glanced at Clint warily before admitting, "I'm afraid he still might... while I'm lying here, practically tied to this bed... and I can't do anything about it." 

Clint opened his mouth as if to speak, but Bobbi interrupted before he could.

"Damnit," Bobbi wiped her eyes again, knowing they were on the verge of spilling over.  "I think I'm feeling a little too honest today," she admitted abashedly, sounding almost disappointed in herself.

"And how high are you right now?" Clint asked, eyeing Bobbi's IV bag.

Bobbi took the bait and smiled briefly, "Only a little."  She then sighed, "I hate this."

"Have you talked to anybody?" Clint cautiously ventured.  "Really talked to anybody?"

She quickly sniffed again.  "Other than you?"

"Yeah."

"They don't want me talking to anybody here.  There's no way to know what ears might hear it," Bobbi explained.  "I've had two remote sessions with Andrew Garner, though."

"Wait," Clint interjected.  " _That_ Andrew Garner?"

Bobbi flashed a quick but genuine smile and chuckled.  "Yeah.   _That_ Andrew Garner."

"Wow," Clint shook his head.  "But I suppose it doesn't matter, right?  You're Bobbi Morse.  You're not going to play ball with the therapist, are you?"

Bobbi just shrugged.  She and Clint both knew the answer to that question, so there was no need to voice it.

The pair sat in silence for several moments before Clint finally asked, "Where's Hunter?"

Bobbi shook her head ruefully, causing a few more hairs to slip out of her already messy braid.  "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

Clint frowned, looking more concerned.  "Try me. What did he do?"

Bobbi huffed once. It was almost a laugh.  "He signed a contract with SHIELD."

"Are you shitting me?" Clint stared at Bobbi.

"You've been on your farm, Clint," Bobbi explained, her mood having swung back down to morose again.  "Outside of Sokovia, you have no idea what's happened in the past few months.  Everything's just gone to utter hell.  Even when we thought we were making things better, we were making them worse... and people are dropping like flies.  Hovering over me in the hospital isn't the best use of his skills.  They couldn't spare him just for this."

"He'd drive you out of your god damned mind anyway," Clint offered, attempting to inject a bit more levity back into the conversation.

"Maybe," Bobbi admitted.  Her eyes stayed downcast and her gaze pensive, Clint's attempt at humor having failed.

"Is he coming at all?"

"Maybe," she echoed.  "I don't know."

Clint could see his old partner sliding into a highly uncharacteristic funk right before his eyes.  Of all the words he would have used to describe her, from warm, to strong, to crazy... melancholy was never one of them.  He didn't bother trying to hide the worry in his expression.  Bobbi wasn't looking him in the eye anyway.  "How long did your doctors say they were going to keep you here?" he carefully ventured.

She shrugged.  "I've had some complications with abscesses in my lungs and, um, with my mobility issues on top of that... they said it would probably be longer than usual."

"You shouldn't be alone here for that long," Clint stated, his tone vaguely scolding.

"I've suffered worse," she retorted, sounding slightly petulant in response.

"Look at yourself, Bird.  Look around you.  I don't think you have," Clint retaliated with point-blank seriousness.  Chastized and far too tired to bother hiding her tells, Bobbi broke eye contact.  Clint's tone softened, but he continued, "What about your family?  Your mom?  Your brother?  Are they coming up here at all?"

Bobbi cast her gaze downward, leaving her to stare numbly into the rumpled folds of her white cotton hospital blanket.  

Clint immediately looked exasperated.  "They don't know you're here, do they?"

Bobbi shook her head.  She remained silent long enough for Clint to be hit with another dawning realization.

"... holy shit," he spat in irritation.  "Even after everything that's gone down in the past few years, you still haven't told them the truth?  SHIELD came out of the cold.  That means you can too."

"I can't let them see me like this."  Anxiety that was even more uncharacteristic than the melancholy crept into Bobbi's voice, "You don't know how much I want to tell them.  I am _tired_ , Clint.  I'm so... so tired of the lies, but this isn't how they should find out.  It's too much."

"I get what you're saying, Birdie... but you can't wait for the perfect moment.  We play spy games and fight aliens and killer robots for a living.  You and I both know how that can end."

Bobbi nodded faintly.  There wasn't an agent of her caliber that hadn't frequently contemplated their own death, but the very idea of how abruptly everything could really end had been weighing quite heavily on her mind for days.

Clint reached out and squeezed Bobbi's hand again.  "You have a story to tell.  Do you want them to hear it from you, or from someone else after it's too late?"

***

**Susan Morse's Kitchen**  
**Rome, Georgia, USA**  
**7:35 PM**

It was not long into their dinner of baked chicken and spinach salad when Bobbi noticed her mother had stopped talking.  Instead, Susan simply watched and smiled as her two children made idle chatter about their lives.  "Mom, what is it?"  Bobbi finally asked.

"Hmm?"

"You're smiling."

Susan looked almost embarrassed at being caught for a moment.  "It's just been so long since I've had the two of you here together... just the three of us, like when you were growing up.  I didn't realize how much I missed this."

It was the same scene that had played out every night in that kitchen until Ben left for college, with Bobbi following two years later - dinner for three.  They all even sat at the same places around the kitchen table, only with an added chair for Bobbi to prop her leg up on.  

In response to their mother's confession, Bobbi and Ben exchanged an awkward glance before Bobbi flashed Susan her best winsome smile; a smile she considered to be yet another lie.

As they all cleaned their plates and dinner came to an end, Bobbi took a moment to truly savor her last bite.  "That was fantastic, mom."

"It wasn't anything special, honey.  I'll go to the grocery store tomorrow and get..." 

"No," Bobbi interrupted.  "It was great.  I just haven't had a good, home cooked meal in a long time."  That, Bobbi thought, was at least true.  With that, she decided not to wait any longer.  It was time to do what she came to do.

"Mom, Ben..." Bobbi began.  She took one last moment to center herself, drawing upon the same SHIELD training that was supposed to teach her how to survive an interrogation.  "I didn't come home because of my knee..."

"I figured.  You need something, don't you?  What is it?  Money?" her brother interrupted.

"Ben..." Susan scolded, sounding very much like a mother who was used to diverting squabbles between her son and daughter, even if they were both in their thirties now.

Bobbi let the interruption slide by and continued without pause.  "I came home because there are some things I need to talk to you about... things I should have told you about a long time ago..."

Her mother interrupted this time.  "You're not sick are you?"

"What?  Mom, no.  It's nothing like that..."

Before she continued, Bobbi took a moment to look at her family.  Years of simmering resentment sat plainly on her brother's face, but her mother simply looked anxious - as if the bomb she had been waiting on all day was finally falling and she could hear the whistle in the air.

"I haven't been here.  I've barely been a part of your lives for... years.  And, I haven't been honest with you about much, about... anything in my life for a long time.  And, I've come home to tell you both the truth and to try to make it right."

Bobbi examined her mother and brother's faces again.  They were both frowning more, but for entirely separate reasons - one vindicated but afraid of the consequences, the other simply scared.  Internally, she desperately wished she knew how to turn that part of her brain off - the part that was analyzing their reactions like she would analyze those of an interrogation subject.

"I don't work for the UN.  I'm not doing research with WHO or any of the other big NGOs..."

She reached into her pocket and pulled out the surprise she had been holding onto all day: her badge from the days before SHIELD fell.  She placed the black leather wallet on the table for both her mother and brother to see, letting it fall open to reveal the silver eagle emblem along with the words "Barbara Morse" and "Specialist."

"My codename is Mockingbird.  I'm Agent 19... of SHIELD."


	3. Chapter 3

_"I'm Agent 19... of SHIELD."_

When confronted with a revelation that is so far outside of what one had ever considered possible, the typical immediate reaction is no reaction at all. The mind requires a moment to process what it just learned before it can even calculate how to respond. Bobbi expected the silence that followed her confession, but she didn't realize how hard it would be to bear. Those few moments felt excruciatingly long.

Bobbi opened her mouth to finally break the silence, but her face only managed to half form a preemptive cringe before both her mother and brother ended the brief stalemate, interrupting each other.

"I don't understand, Barbara... what does this--"

"What the _hell_ , Bobbi?"

Every bit of Bobbi's training screamed in her head, telling her to hide behind her perfect poker face and not display nothing but shrewd confidence. She pushed that thought away and let her face show all of the guilt she felt. She told herself it wasn't a mask this time, despite having worn an eerily similar one for Hunter many times before.

"I am so, so sorry," Bobbi began, with her voice barely above a whisper. "I'm sorry that for so long I _couldn't_ tell you. And, I'm sorry that once I probably could have... I didn't." She did all that she could to ignore the little voice in the back of her head reminding her how much easier it would have been to simply keep lying.

Susan gingerly picked up the badge Bobbi placed on the table and examined it in her hands, lightly touching the image of her daughter's face.

"... is this real?" Susan finally asked, before delicately placing the badge back down on the table. Ben quickly snatched it up to examine it himself.

"Yeah. It is," Bobbi admitted. "But it doesn't quite mean what it used to." She followed that admission with a heavy sigh that transitioned into a rough cough. She avoided instinctively bringing a hand up to her chest when the coughing began, thankful that both her mother and brother seemed too preoccupied with her confession to notice.

Her breathing settled, Bobbi spoke again. "I should have done this after the battle of New York, when we went public. I just never found the right time, I guess. And..."

With hesitation clear in her voice, Susan interrupted, sounding as if she hadn't heard Bobbi's coughing fit or anything she said after it. "SHIELD... they must have incredible science programs. But... with your degree... does this mean you're doing weapons research?"

"No, Mom. I'm..."

Ben took his turn at interrupting before Bobbi could even begin to answer their mother. "The battle of New York? With the aliens? Are you telling us you were there?"

"The Chitauri. And no, I wasn't there... I mean... I was, but... only in the aftermath" Bobbi paused for a moment before continuing, trying to gather her thoughts and stop stumbling over her own answers. "I was preparing to deploy to New York from The Triskelion during the invasion, but Stark ended things before any of us could get out of there. We needed all the boots on the ground we could find for the clean-up, though."

"To study the aliens," Susan said, sounding mostly like she was trying to convince herself. Bobbi could hear her mother's entire thought process in her tone of voice. With everything she knew about her daughter evaporating, she must have been desperate to frame what she was hearing in a context where somehow everything was still the same.

On the other hand, Ben's brain was very evidently going in another direction. "Why would they send _you_ during the battle?" He looked down at Bobbi's badge again, which was still in his hands. "What does 'specialist' mean, exactly?"

Sounding more helpless and tired than she wanted to, Bobbi simply said, "It means they were sending me to _fight_ , Ben."

"... to fight?" Susan asked, finally allowing those last shreds of denial to slip.

Before Bobbi could respond, something seized in her chest and she began another coughing fit.

"Barbara, don't lie to me," Susan spoke again. Her tone shifted, sounding stern. "You're sick."

"You're telling her not to lie to us?" Ben interrupted with his own retort. "Christ. That's all she's ever done."

"Mom! I'm not sick. I'm not lying!" Bobbi snapped, far more sharply than she intended. 

Bobbi could feel her temper flaring. Or, as Hunter might say, the hell-beast was waking up. She wanted to blame Ben's combativeness, but inside she knew it was because she lost control of the conversation and that frustrated her. She had never handled being cornered in her own lies well. The first revelation was supposed to be that she was SHIELD. The second, that she was an elite spy and not a scientist, was supposed to come later. This wasn't quite how she had wanted to reach that point. She took deep calming breath and released it with a wheeze before continuing.

"I'm sorry," Bobbi said, briefly closing her eyes. "I didn't mean to snap. It's just... I rehearsed this conversation over and over in my head, and it never once went like this."

Susan's eyes immediately became downcast, leaving her staring at the table. Bobbi tried her best to not analyze that. Ben merely rolled his eyes, which required no analysis at all.

"Let me just start at the beginning," Bobbi glanced at both her mother and brother before adding, "Please."

"All right," Susan replied with a tension in her voice that pained Bobbi.

"All right," Bobbi said in echo.

Ben said nothing at all.

  
***

"It started in my second year at GT," Bobbi began. "I was working as a lab assistant for Dr. Calvin. I didn't know it at the time, but she was also a SHIELD contractor... part scientist, part recruiter. And... I guess she saw something in me."

Bobbi glanced down and realized she had picked a butter knife up off the table without noticing. She had been twirling it around and around between her fingers on her left hand like a miniature baton. Her right hand felt fidgety too, but the tape on her fingers left her lacking in the necessary manual dexterity to spin silverware. She quietly placed the knife back on the table before continuing.

"... Dr. Calvin had a few of us working on using equilibrium unfolding to study these protein chains. She already knew what we'd find. The real experiment was to see if any of us would figure out what we were really looking at - what those protein chains were a part of. And, I did. I guess my fate was pretty much sealed that day. So, she -"

"What was it?" Susan interrupted to ask. Bobbi looked at her mother for a moment, appreciating the honest curiosity. Science was in the family tradition. Ever the science teacher, even at home, Susan made sure her two children learned to appreciate it.

"... it was a tiny piece of one of the components of the Super Soldier Serum process from World War Two - the magic that made Captain America. Starting with the SSR and then SHIELD, they've been trying to piece it back together for over seventy years now. Though in retrospect, that's a genie that should probably stay in its bottle." She smiled briefly before adding, "I never did get to meet the guy. A friend of mine always said he introduce me but..."

Bobbi could feel her fingers inching towards a spoon to replace the butter knife she had abandoned. She stopped herself, stilling her hands again. She let her gaze remain on the spoon, however. She couldn't analyze her family's reactions to her words if she refused to look them in the eyes. Her own reflection in the spoon, however, was too distorted to seem judgemental.

Finally, Ben said something. There was a slowness to his words, as if he was still fitting puzzle pieces together as he spoke. "That's why you quit running..."

"Yeah," Bobbi replied. "Dr. Calvin helped me work everything out. The grant funding I managed to find to cover my tuition after I left the track team and lost my athletic scholarship... that was all SHIELD money."

Bobbi finally lifted her gaze from the remains of dinner on the tabletop and looked her mother in the eye. "You don't know how desperately I wanted to call you then, Mom. I had never been so scared in my life. It seemed like the right thing to do... but there I was, not even old enough to drink yet and signing a pile of NDAs an inch thick."

"Why didn't you tell me?" Susan asked.

Bobbi shook her head helplessly then simply said, "They told me not to... and I hadn't learned how to argue with secret agents in dark suits yet."

Smiling briefly and looking almost wistful, Bobbi moved on with her story. "It was full speed ahead from there. Dr. Calvin helped arrange to put me in all of the summer classes, authorized my course overload... everything to graduate me as soon as possible. That's the truth of how I _really_ managed to finish undergrad in two and a half years. Then, she rolled me right into the PhD program."

"Is that even real? Your doctorate?" Ben finally spoke again.

"Of course it's real," Susan replied, sounding slightly defensive. Then, as if she remembered what conversation she was in the middle of having, she tentatively asked, "Isn't it, honey?"

"Yeah. It's real." Bobbi could feel her throat starting to tighten. She mentally willed her voice not to crack. Were she being calculated, she might let it go. A genuine show of emotion could do a lot to sell her story. Instead, she let her pride take control and she pushed it all down. She once told Mack she feared something was wrong with her. Moments like these were why.

"... that's why I wanted you to keep the diploma, Mom. By that point I had already told you so many lies and I thought it would be the last _real_ thing in my life I might ever share with you."

As soon as those words left her mouth, Bobbi chanced a glance at Susan and saw the one thing she absolutely did not want to see: the sheen of burgeoning tears in her mother's blue eyes. Fear of that sight contributed to these many years of silence. Bobbi wasn't the only one to notice. Ben's eyes, in the same shade of blue as his mom's and sister's, grew harder. He glared at Bobbi. Lying for over a decade was a major sin. Bringing their mother to tears was even bigger.

Knowing she would never find that perfect words to soothe both Ben and Susan, Bobbi simply forged ahead with her story.

"SHIELD covered all of the funding for grad school, directed my research, and pretty much told me what my thesis would be... which was more work on the serum. I started bouncing back and forth between GT, to keep working with Dr. Calvin, and SHIELD Academy's Sci-Tech campus. I started spending more and more time at Sci-Tech and... that's why I stopped coming home. I wasn't just an hour away any more."

"So, what the hell changed?" Ben asked.

"... Sci-Tech offered a few Ops electives. Small arms, basic hand-to-hand, you know. I signed up because they sounded fun," Bobbi admitted. "But the thing is... I was good. Really good. I don't think I realized how good until one day when I went back to GT because Dr. Calvin wanted to see me. She said she wanted to talk about my future with SHIELD."

Bobbi paused a moment, quickly smiling at the memory. "I thought she was going to tell me I was being washed out. SHIELD has a way of finding the most incredible minds and I felt a little below average there, to tell you the truth. I mean, I work with these two scientists now... an engineer and a biochemist..."

"I think you'd love them both, mom. They're so young and so brilliant. They're so enthusiastic just... about the science." Bobbi chanced a glance at her mother. Susan gave her a smile that was somehow both warm and sad. Bobbi returned the smile, but it faded quickly as the thought of Jemma Simmons crossed her mind.

"... one of them was declared officially MIA about a month ago." Bobbi's voice went quiet again. "I don't think we're going to find her." She shook her head, as if willing that thought away, and made a point of not glancing at her mother's face.

"Anyway... Dr. Calvin said I had caught the eye of an Operations scout and that Ops wanted me. She gave me a choice. She said I could stay with Sci-Tech or go to Ops. Though she also said that based on what they were seeing... I should go. I never forgot how she put it: you will do good things with Sci-Tech, but you'll probably do _great_ things in Ops."

"You always had to be the best at everything," Ben muttered. Bobbi could hear a few layers in his tone. There might have been a hint of affection beneath the bitterness.

"Yeah. You know me. I always wanted to save the world. So, I decided to transfer... but I told Dr. Calvin that I had one condition: I wanted to finish my degree still."

"Why?" Susan asked.

"You taught me about science ever since I was little. You were my science teacher before I ever reached your class in the seventh grade." Bobbi reached out and put her right hand on top of her mother's. Susan immediately started examining the medical tape coating three of her daughter's fingers.

"I couldn't tell you the truth... and I couldn't come up with a single story to explain why I was giving all of that up that I thought you would believe." Bobbi shook her head ruefully, "I was still new at this. I had a lot to learn about telling lies, still. So, I just decided to make it true."

There was no doubt in Bobbi's mind that if she asked SHIELD to cook up a fake dissertation for her, they would have it written, printed and bound within the space of a week. She would never pretend the thought hadn't crossed her mind once or twice while she was at the academy, but it never seemed like a _real_ option.

"But I kept lying anyway. That's when I told you I was going abroad to study at GT's sister campus in Lorraine. I was going back and forth between the Ops and Sci-Tech campuses and almost never in Atlanta. I needed a reason to explain why I wasn't coming home anymore, and why you couldn't come see me. So, I--"

"... I was so worried about you, then," Susan said as she released her hold on Bobbi's fingers. "Going to France, not speaking a word of the language..."

A ghost of a smile appeared on Bobbi's face before she spoke again. "J'appris à parler français parfait, en fait."

Ben opened his mouth, but Bobbi explained before he could say anything. "SHIELD put me into eight language intensives over the years. I do speak French. I also speak Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Arabic, Mandarin and Japanese... all fluently. Actually, my Portuguese still needs a little work, but..."

"Portuguese? Really?" Ben asked abruptly. Bobbi could see the frustration on his face. She knew he wasn't buying much of what she was saying.

She shrugged, "Sim. Português."

He was not mollified in the slightest. "Are you really expecting us to just--"

"To just accept what I'm saying? No, Ben. I'm not," Bobbi interrupted, finishing the thought for him. She could feel her temper rising again, but she closed her eyes and took a moment to will it to fade. "I'm dropping a lot on you right now. I'm tearing down twelve years of lies. But... I just need you to give me a chance to explain. I'm trying to."

Ben clenched his jaw, saying nothing further. Susan just gave him a look that was somewhere between sad and reproachful.

"Look. I never worked harder in my life than I did while I was at the academy. Once I officially transferred to Ops, they put me on the specialist track... which is _intense_. There were the language courses... I actually started with Russian. I took enough behavioral psych courses to probably pick up another degree if anybody was counting credits. They taught me... everything: situational tactics, how to pilot a quinjet, do the tango, navigate international relations... The physical conditioning was insane. They taught me to shoot, to _fight_ , and yes..." Bobbi's voice suddenly grew weary, "... to lie. ... All while writing my dissertation at night."

"So then what?" Ben asked, sounding demanding.

"So then I finished my PhD and graduated from the academy. SHIELD helped me establish a civilian cover with the World Health Organization. Then, I told you guys I was moving to Geneva... when I was really being deployed to Moscow, then Manila, then..."

Bobbi just shook her head. She could hear the opening of one of Hunter's battlefield jokes echoing in her mind. _Join SHIELD. Travel to exotic, distant lands. Meet exciting and unusual people..._

"I've visited over fifty countries. I've set foot on all seven continents. I've also spent a lot of time parked in.. or above international waters, but... a lot of the time I was just in DC. Hell, I own a condo in Columbia Heights. But--"

"All seven continents?" Susan suddenly asked. She sounded genuinely interested, "Even Antarctica?"

"Yeah. I've been to Antarctica." Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Ben opening his mouth to ask the obvious question. She shook her head at him sharply as if to say, _don't ask_. Much to her surprise, he stayed silent.

Susan spoke again instead. "So what _are_ you, Barbara?"

"I'm a spy, mom." 

With those words, Bobbi felt a little of the proverbial weight disappear from her shoulders. The feeling was fleeting, however.

"You're a damned good liar, I'll give you that," Ben added, his bitterness coming through fully.

Bobbi simply shook her head sadly and agreed. "Yeah. I am."

"I was," Bobbi paused to correct herself. "-- _am_ one of SHIELD's best. Before everything fell apart, I was reporting directly to Director Fury. Being a specialist means I was usually called in for complex or high-risk operations and--"

Ben interrupted again, "If this is all true, how the hell do you still have a job? Didn't SHIELD fall out of the sky and land on DC?"

"SHIELD didn't disappear that day. We're rebuilding and I'm trying to figure out my place in it now." Bobbi glanced down at the table and spotted the butter knife she had previously abandoned. Succumbing to vices, she allowed herself to pick it up to busy her hands again. "But, I don't think that's a day I can really talk to you guys about. Not yet."

"Why not?" Ben demanded.

"Because that was the _worst_ day of my entire life, Ben."

"And?"

"Ben, don't..." Susan tried to intercede, but both of her now-grown children kept talking over her.

"And what?" Bobbi demanded back.

"You said you spent a lot of time in DC. Were you there?"

"No. Fury had me out... running an errand." Bobbi raked a hand through her blonde hair in frustration. Nick Fury's favorite euphemism for "going on a suicide mission" felt entirely too wrong coming out of her mouth now.

"So what was so awful you can't even talk about it?" Ben's tone was growing challenging. "Didn't you just give us a whole speech about telling the truth?"

Widening noticeably, Bobbi's blue eyes took on an almost wild look. If there was one thing her brother had in common with her ex-husband, it was that they both knew how to provoke her. "What was so bad? The organization I gave _everything_ I had to imploded in the space of an afternoon. And, I _lost_ more people that I cared about in the span of 48 hours than I have in the rest of my life. A lot of good people _died_ that day, and the rest of us were left with _nowhere to go_."

"Barbara..." Susan attempted to gently interrupt again, but Bobbi and Ben's tempers were too locked on to each other's for her words to break through.

"What'd they say in the news about the death toll that day? _Twenty three dead in DC?_ You know that number is complete bullshit, right?" Bobbi could feel tension building in her chest again. Another coughing fit was desperate to claw its way out of her lungs, but she pushed it down and kept on talking, her voice raising with every passing sentence. 

"That was just people killed because of the helicarrier crashed. The media didn't talk about everybody lost in the fighting at the Triskelion, or any of our other bases. I was on one of our aircraft carriers, and you know what? We had a lot more than twenty three dead bodies on that one boat alone. And everyone else I lost? The ones who weren't killed in the chaos? I thought they were my friends. They were people I would have _trusted with my life_ just that morning, but they were traitors, they were Hydra. So to me, they're all _as good as dead_. They lied to me, _they lied to all of us_." 

Bobbi leaned forward and defiantly stared her brother straight in the eye, "Is that what you wanted to hear, Ben?"

Ben met Bobbi's stare, undeterred. "Oh, they lied to you? You've told us nothing but lies for twelve fucking years. How the hell are you any different?"

In that moment, every ounce of sorrow and guilt Bobbi had been feeling was replaced with a surge of anger. "Oh, don't you dare," she hissed, her grip tightening on the butter knife she held. "I am _not_ HYDRA. I am _nothing_ like them."

"But you _are_ a liar," Ben retorted.

"Personally and professionally. I know I am!"

"So what the hell is the difference?"

Her emotions began surging. Mourning and anger always complimented each other so very well, thus Bobbi gave up on any remaining attempts to keep her temper in check. "Because they lied as a part of some crazy Nazi world-domination plot. How the hell can you even compare me to that?"

Ben leaned forward suddenly, "I don't know, baby sister. You said it yourself. You've barely been here for years now, and you come home and we find out you're actually a complete stranger!"

Bobbi suddenly stabbed the handle end of the butter knife against the table, "I am still--"

Ben rose slightly in his seat. "How the hell am I supposed to know--"

"Because I know you're smarter than this, Ben!" Bobbi's eyes began to glisten with moisture, "They didn't care who they killed. They wanted people like me dead. I know you saw that much on the news. All of those people who I used to call friends, fellow agents... _that's why I had to put bullets in them myself_!"

With those words, it was as if the air had been sucked out of the kitchen. There was the punchline everyone had been waiting for since dinner ended. _Join SHIELD._ _Meet exciting and unusual people... and kill them_.

SHIELD taught her to lie, but also taught her to kill. It wasn't that she thought she could pretend that wasn't the case. Her mom and brother would have come to that truth eventually. But, if there was any revelation she was hoping to postpone for another night, this was it.

Susan stared at her daughter, stunned and plainly devastated. "Oh, Barbara..."

Ben was silenced for a moment as well, staring at his sister in disbelief. Finally, he spoke again. "You... what? How many people have--"

"No," Bobbi interrupted, her tone cooler than it had been all night. "I am here to tell you the truth, but that is the _one_ question you do not get to ask me."

Ben shook his head, "Fine. So you're just going to dump all of this on us and expect us to take it?"

Bobbi's instinct was to stand, to make her point. For a brief moment, she forgot she was broken and she let her right leg fall from the chair it had rested on to the floor. When her heel hit the floor, the force of the impact sent a shock of pain shooting through her knee. She ignored it and continued on. "No. You want to be pissed at me? That's fine. I lied about my life, and I know I'm hurting you and Mom... but I did it for the right reasons. That's why it's different. I did it to protect you both."

"Protect us from what?" Ben demanded.

"When I said I was sorry, Ben, Mom... I don't think I was apologizing for lying to you. I'm apologizing for telling you the truth. Because now that I have, you have to be the liars instead. And I am so sorry for doing this to you."

"So why are you? Why now?" Ben's asked, still demanding and growing impatient.

Bobbi responded bluntly. "Because I needed you to hear this from me... and not from Hunter or someone like the Director because they're bringing my body home."

Ben opened his mouth to respond--

"Both of you!" Susan abruptly snapped. "That is _enough_."

Both siblings were immediately silenced, with only the faint sound of Bobbi's wheezing cutting through the abrupt quiet. Bobbi pressed a hand to her sternum, as if it could quell that feeling of suffocation that never quite went away. But, as she saw the anguish and hurt telegraphed so plainly on her mother's face, the feeling in her lungs was forgotten as her heart seized instead. A single thought formed in the forefront of her mind. _I've done it again_.

As Bobbi kept staring at Susan, she suddenly realized she could see the passage of all of their lost time right on her mother's face. She was supposed to be uncannily observant, but somehow she had never noticed before. Susan's hair had more grey in it. Her lips seemed thinner. There were more wrinkles by the corners of of eyes. For the first time in her life, Bobbi realized her mother was starting to look _old._ Twelve years was a long time, and even as she hid from her family, time marched on for them. Somehow, she just assumed the woman she was seeing was the mother she remembered, but no... she had changed too. The weight of all Bobbi had missed suddenly felt very heavy.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, still staring. The first tear finally spilled over and slid its way unnoticed down Bobbi's cheek.

She snapped out of her reverie when Ben abruptly stood up, nearly knocking over his chair. "Do you even hear yourself, Bobbi? You are so full of shit."

Bobbi couldn't help but to flinch as the door to the back porch slammed shut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter took a lot longer to finish than I hoped. In the end, I decided to split it into two... as it was threatening to spiral into a 9000 word behemoth. So, here's the first 4.5k!
> 
> Thanks for reading this far... and comments are always appreciated.
> 
> Up next: Bobbi tries to make some peace with her big brother.


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